Quote:There are NO more ninja. Hatsumi himself refers to Takamatsu as "the last true ninja". All others today are simply practitioners of the arts.

Whats with these so called "clans" popping up like a bad rash?

Actually Hatsumi usually refers to Takamatsu as the last combat ninja (Saigo no jissen ninjya, http://img294.imageshack.us/img294/9540/saigo7le.jpg ). I have heard him call himself a ninja more than once and Tanemura sensei refers to the Genbukan as a 'True ninja group' in his book Ninpou secrets.

Quote: Ninja were not and are not just practicioners of fighting arts.

Exactly my point, the "ninja" were more than simply practitioners of the ninjutsu arts. The modern practitioners of ninjutsu are NOT ninja. Hatsumi and Tanemura are NOT ninja no matter how much they want to call themselves one. The "ninja" were an entity of a specific time period. Regardless of if people today eithe practice the art, employ their skills in similar professions (i.e. SEAL tactics, CIA, Yakuza) or both, they still are not ninja. You seem to have your head wrapped around some sort of ideology as to what ninja are or what it takes to constitute one but you are missing the entire point. Just as modern practitioners of iaido, kenjutsu, daito ryu and so on will never be samurai regardless of their chosen profession. Yes, that means even members of the Japanese military practicing these arts are not samurai. Even though there is a difference in terms of samurai being a class and ninja not being a specific class the dynamic is still the same.

Back to the subject of the "ninja-to". I would like ANYONE to provide historical documentation that such a weapon existed. Anyone who has even a mild understanding of the history of the Japanese sword knows this weapon is both unreal and impractical even for the far fetched "uses" of it. If anyone has ever toured the Japanese sword museum in Tokyo you will have noticed no display portraying the straight blade, square tsuba ninja-to. There isn't even one in the Iga ninja museum in Ueno park. The "ninja-to" is a figment of Hollywood's imagination that has bleed over into countless fraudulent systems that claim it is legit. So for you "historians", try looking past your system of ninjutsu and what your friends say and dig into the actual history.

Quote: Saigo no jissen ninjya

This translates closer to "last solid line ninja" or "last ninja put into practice" aka last true ninja, not last "combat" ninja.

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Quote: Ninja were not and are not just practicioners of fighting arts.

Exactly my point, the "ninja" were more than simply practitioners of the ninjutsu arts. The modern practitioners of ninjutsu are NOT ninja. Hatsumi and Tanemura are NOT ninja no matter how much they want to call themselves one. The "ninja" were an entity of a specific time period. Regardless of if people today eithe practice the art, employ their skills in similar professions (i.e. SEAL tactics, CIA, Yakuza) or both, they still are not ninja. You seem to have your head wrapped around some sort of ideology as to what ninja are or what it takes to constitute one but you are missing the entire point. Just as modern practitioners of iaido, kenjutsu, daito ryu and so on will never be samurai regardless of their chosen profession. Yes, that means even members of the Japanese military practicing these arts are not samurai. Even though there is a difference in terms of samurai being a class and ninja not being a specific class the dynamic is still the same.

Quote: Saigo no jissen ninjya

This translates closer to "last solid line ninja" or "last ninja put into practice" aka last true ninja, not last "combat" ninja.

This is what I was trying to get at all along Paradox, so once again:

Quote:

Ninja were not and are not just practicioners of fighting arts.

Thanks Paradoxbox, you just proved my whole arguement!!

Since the era in which we mostly associate Ninja no longer exists, ancient Ninja no longer exist. You have to put an adjective in front of ninja in order to describe today's ninja, because the meaning of of the word has changed along with the society.

Your Homework:Caesar, as in the family, or Caesar, as in King?Ninja, as known in feudal Japan, or ninja, as in today's modern applications of their techs/culture/methods/etc?

Explain the differences of Casear and Caesar, and Ninja and Ninja given by this question, and why they are NOT the same.

Even the article from the site you gave me differentiates between Ninja, and "modern" ninja. The same samurai comparison has been made by the article, Laf, and I in this thread....

Combat ninja would be referring to feudal ninja, and they don't exist anymore.

So when you say ninja exist, you have to acknowledge that they are far different from their ancient bretheren, because even this debate over Takamatsu's book/dvd proposes that the ninja of old (combat ninja) have died out.

Well all I know is that I don't ever want anyone calling me a ninja, and I sure as heck won't be refering to myself as one either. The concept has become cheesy and fictional thanks to hollywood and most ppl don't know what real ninja were, so if one was to call themself one it really wouldn't help any IMO.

I even don't use the word ninjutsu anymore when explaining Bujinkan to others.

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Well, I guess there's nothing wrong with calling it taijutsu or something like that. Bujinkan has more than just ninjutsu in it, as does genbukan and jinenkan. I don't get why anyone would want to argue with the grandmaster of 3 specificly defined ninjutsu traditions about whether or not they can call themselves ninjas though. Grandmasters know best.

Each of them chose to call their art something other than "ninjutsu" for a reason. Part of that reason was to separate them self from the "ninja" stereotype.

Face the facts. You are contradicting yourself. In one breath you say ninja are more than practitioners of ninjutsu but then you claim modern practitioners are ninja. If a ninja is more than a practitioner of the art then how are these people, who only practice the art, ninja? Here is a hint they are not ninja. You are not a ninja.

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Enjoy life while you can, you never know when things will change.

Well G dubayah is President of the united States of America, so if we were talking politics I could say, "G dubayah knows best...."

And we ALL know that just ain't always the case...

Plus, there are "grandmasters" for Mcdojo's too....

Historians don't even know everything, NO educated scholars believed that the Trojan War actually happened until Heinrich Schliemann excavated a huge fortified city in Asia Minor.....

We're all human, and humans are inaccurate creatures at best, including Grandmasters.

You're a history major, you should know better. This grandmaster is a tertiary source, not primary or secondary, his knowledge comes from other people, those sources came from other sources, which came from even more sources which came from the mouth of ninja themselves. Now how reliable is that?